During her short life of 33 years, singer Eva Cassidy was hardly known beyond her gigs at Blues Alley in Washington and at Pearl's, Reynolds Tavern and the Maryland Inn in Annapolis. Her two recordings, a 1992 CD called The Other Side that featured go-go legend Chuck Brown and 1996's Live at Blues Alley, got radio play only in Maryland and the D.C. area.
Only after her death - of melanoma in 1996 - did the Bowie native achieve her dream of being heard by a wider audience.
Through the efforts of family friend Elana Byrd, an Annapolis attorney who helped settle Cassidy's estate with her parents, a contract with Bill Straw of Blix Street Records was signed in 1997. He arranged to market the first two CDs outside the U.S. and has since released five CDs, including Somewhere, which went out on shelves on Tuesday.
FOR THE RECORD
A caption to a photograph accompanying an article on the late singer Eva Cassidy misspelled the name of the lawyer who handled the singer's estate. The lawyer is Elana Byrd.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the errors.
More than 8 million copies of Cassidy's CDs have been sold; her recordings have gone quadruple platinum in England and platinum in the U.S.
Her sales numbers are expected to grow with the debut of Somewhere, which contains 12 previously unreleased songs, including two that she co-wrote.
Like the versatile singer who refused to be pegged, the recording is an eclectic mix containing something for everyone, including pop, R&B, folk, Appalachian, jazz and country. There are near-gospel tunes, such as Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors," and classic folk, such as "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose," and swinging country like the Patsy Cline classic "Walkin' After Midnight," along with a heart-wrenching, prophetic "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" - and my personal favorite, Gershwin's "Summertime," as I've never heard it and as it was always meant to be sung.
Among the original songs, Cassidy adapted the lyrics of "Early One Morning" from an English folk song set to music by Rob Cooper, and she wrote "Somewhere" with her longtime friend and producer, Chris Biondo.
On the CD, I could hear echoes of some of my favorites: a little Ella Fitzgerald, the raucousness of Billie Holiday and the vocal beauty of Barbara Cook. Their music, however, is different from the breathing immortality of Eva Cassidy.
She connects with listeners on a one-to-one level. Her voice is pure, her musical sense uncanny, her ability to define a lyric amazing and assured - "Summertime" seems to be uniquely on par with her best-known cover, "Over the Rainbow."
